D.

STRATEGIES IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

1. Leadership style
o Leadership style refers to the way managers interact with others and it directly influences
such things as the output of employee absenteeism and efficiency
o A number of different leadership styles can be adopted, depending on the circumstances. =
include the autocratic style and the participative leadership style.
- Autocratic leadership style is where managers use a high degree of direction and
permit little or no participation in decision-making by subordinates.
- Participative leadership style is where managers encourage a high degree of
employee participation in decision-making as well as open communication channels.
Although the decision will eventually be made by the manager (this is not a system
where employees vote) the employee has the opportunity to give the manager
feedback on the decision and it is likely to be a better decision for that feedback.
o The leadership style influences the way employees do their work at every level of the skill
scale.
o As skill levels increase, it is even more important to have an appropriate leadership style.
- At the higher skill levels the focus should be on self-managing teams, and an autocratic
leadership style would be inappropriate.

2. Job design general or specific tasks
o Job design is a process where a set of tasks and the responsibilities associated with those
tasks are combined to make up a job.
o The individual tasks that make up the job can be designed in different ways. They can be
task specific or general.
- Autocratic leadership style is where managers use a high degree of direction and
permit little or no participation in decision-making by subordinates.
- Participative leadership style is where managers encourage a high degree of
employee participation in decision-making as well as open communication channels.
Although the decision will eventually be made by the manager (this is not a system
where employees vote) the employee has the opportunity to give the manager
feedback on the decision

3. Recruitment internal or external, general or specific skills
o Recruitment can be either internal or external, general or specific skills
- They include recruiting people from within the business for promotional positions or
vacant positions elsewhere in the business or recruiting people from outside the
business.
- They also have to decide if it would be best to recruit people with very specific skills
required by the job or people with general skills who can be trained in the specific
skills they need to do the job.
- Many businesses are recruiting using 457 visas. This type of visa allows businesses to
recruit talent from overseas when there is a skills shortage in Australia.

o Internal recruitment has the advantage of helping to build long-term relationships.
- The disadvantage is that internal recruitment can make it more difficult to respond
effectively to change
- Managers often find it difficult to change the business culture (the attitudes and values
within a business on how things are done here.) when people have been doing things
in a certain way for a long period of time.
o External recruitment has the advantage that new ideas and ways of doing things often
contribute to the achievement of business goals
o This is why most large businesses use a combination of both strategies = they use the
external recruitment strategy for graduates and internal recruitment for promotions.

o The HR department in a business has to develop a strategy based on the type of skill
general or specific - they want to recruit = Most large businesses recruit both types of skills.
4. Training and development current and future skills
o Australian businesses, generally, have tended to focus on current training rather than
preparing employees with the skills they will need for future jobs.
- One of the main reasons is that training is expensive. However, large businesses are
keen to be regarded as great places to work and training for future skills is important
for many employees
o The advantages of these strategies are that current training can give a business a
competitive advantage, improve quality, improve productivity and reduce costs in the long
term, with less need to correct errors by redoing work or fixing work on warranty.
o The advantage of preparing employees for future work and developing a long-term
relationship is that the business is protecting itself against skill shortages.

o Training and development are about investing in employees.
- An effective training and development program sends a positive message to the
employees in that business that the business values their contribution, and often the
employee will regard the investment as providing better career prospects and
contributing to a long-term relationship.

o The most important reason for training employees in the skills they require for future jobs
is that employees want this type of training.
5. Performance management developmental or administrative
Performance management is a continuous process of identifying, measuring and developing
the performance of not only individual employees but also the teams they operate in.
o It is important to set effective goals for performance management so progress towards
those goals can be measured.

Developmental performance management
o The result of the performance management is that individual employees and the teams are
constantly adjusting the way they do things to better meet the business goals. Any team member
who struggles with a particular aspect of their work is given both training and coaching. This is
developmental performance management.

Administrative performance management
o The administrative aspects of performance management involve keeping extensive records of
employee performance in such a way that judgements can be made about how well the
employees performance is aligned with the businesss goals and the progress the employee is
making.
o Administrative performance management provides the tools needed to develop a long-term
relationship with the employee.
o Administrative aspects of performance management are complex = require sophisticated
computer software and really only large businesses are able to do this.
- Orica, for example, have such sophisticated software that they are able to match
salaries to performance and this gives the higher performing employees greater
rewards
6. Rewards monetary and non-monetary, individual or group, performance pay
o Reward management refers to the monetary and non-monetary benefits employees
receive for their work.
- Awards, called modern awards in Australia, establish the minimum set of working
conditions for the same work across Australia.
They deal with things like minimum wages, penalty rates, annual leave, hours
worked and a dispute resolution process.
- Non-monetary benefits come from the nature of the work rather than wages.
o Performance pay is where wages and salaries are linked to the individual performance in
achieving measureable goals.
- Orica have a broad strategy to link performance to salary. The benefit is improved
performance, because the higher performing employees are appropriately rewarded.
7. Global costs, skills, supply
o Increasingly, large businesses are developing strategies to take advantage of global
opportunities.
o The key requirement for all businesses is to remain competitive, and in order to do this the
managers have to constantly assess productivity.
- They have to decide if they should use their own employees or look for employees in
the global environment who have the required skills but at a lower cost.
o Many businesses are getting around the shortage in supply by identifying people with
talent in other areas and, with a combination of mentoring and training, using those people
in areas of high skill shortage
8. Workplace disputes
Resolution
Negotiation, mediation, grievance procedures, Involvement of courts and tribunals
Industrial disputes almost inevitably result in both benefits and costs.
o Too frequently the benefits are ignored.
o The main benefits of industrial disputes are the changes that occur because of the dispute =
these changes lead to significant improvements in productivity.

Resolution, negotiation, mediation, grievance procedures, involvement of courts and tribunals
o Businesses need a formal procedure to resolve disputes as quickly and effectively as
possible, so it is important to have a procedure to resolve the dispute.
- The typical resolution process follows a number of steps. These are negotiation,
mediation and grievance procedures, and, if these fail = the involvement of courts and
tribunals.